Persons who have difficulty climbing up or going down stairs will often need the assistance of a handrail. However, a stair handrail will ordinarily only extend as far as the last step before a landing or floor. Handrails usually cannot extend farther, either for aesthetic reasons, or for safety reasons, e.g., an extra-long handrail might be a dangerous protrusion.
Thus, a person who needs a handrail for every stair step will often have difficulty taking the first or last step on a set of stairs due to the lack of any rail or other sturdy object to hold onto.
Thus, there exists a need for a removable handrail that can be easily inserted and removed from a relatively unobtrusive bracket, where the handrail is positioned, for example, to be used for additional threshold support at the first or last step on a set of stairs.
In the displayed embodiment, the device comprises a bracket and a handle. In this embodiment, the proximal, connector, and distal portions and sides of the handle are positioned substantially at right angles to each other. Components of the bracket are likewise at substantially right angles to one another and designed to receive the handle at right angles. As a result, when the handle is inserted into the bracket the handle is immobilized in virtually all directions in which a user might exert a force vector upon the handle during use. The handle can be easily removed because an inserted handle is not prevented from being lifted directly upward, and directly upward is the one direction in which a user is extremely unlikely to push during use.
Directional terms such as “right” and “left” in this disclosure and in the claims are only used to explain the relative positions of elements and parts, and are not absolute. For example, “right” and “left” might be reversed in this disclosure if the bracket were designed such that the terminal end of the handle were to point right rather than left.
Various changes, alternatives and modifications will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art following a reading of this specification and a review of the drawings. It is intended that any such changes, alternatives and modifications as fall within the scope of the appended claims be considered part of the present invention.